Not
long ago, a friend of mine asked me to draft a few pertinent, if not
provocative, questions to be posed to all of the candidates who run
for the Presidency in the 2016 elections. After what should be the initial
question posed to every aspirant to “the Office of President”—namely,
“Are you actually ‘eligible to th[at] Office’ by virtue
of being ‘a natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section
1, Clause 4 of the Constitution?”—the following queries
came to my mind:

1.
Are there any principles of government in George Washington’s
Farewell Address which you, as President, would not attempt
to put into practice? If so, what are they; and why and how would you
deviate from them?

2.
This country’s monetary and banking systems have slipped into
a state of chronic crisis, which threatens to devolve into a nationwide
financial collapse. As President, how would you utilize the authority
granted to you under Title 12, United States Code, Section 95(a), to
deal with this situation?

3.
As President, how would you support those States that adopted an alternative
currency pursuant to the authority the Constitution reserves to them
in Article I, Section 10, Clause 1?

4.
As President, under Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution
you would be the “Commander in Chief * * * of the Militia of the
several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States”.
Today, no State fields a constitutional Militia. Would you therefore
demand revitalization of the Militia in the several States as soon as
possible—and how would you go about it?

5.
Many Americans fear that, in a severe national crisis, such as a collapse
of the monetary and banking systems, “martial law” will
be imposed. As President, under what circumstances would you support
the use of “martial law”, and on what constitutional basis?

6.
The Supreme Court takes the position that a decision which it renders
on an issue of constitutional law is itself “the supreme law of
the land”, which can be reversed only by a subsequent decision
of the Court or an amendment of the Constitution. As President, would
you accede to this theory of “judicial supremacy”? If not,
why and how would you oppose it?

7.
Many Americans believe that the current resident of the White House,
Barack Obama, has never been eligible for “the Office of President”
because he is not a “natural born Citizen”, and that the
facts concerning his ineligibility have been systematically ignored,
covered up, and even falsified by rogue public officials at every level
of the federal system. As President, would you immediately open an investigation
into this question so as to settle the matter once and for all? If not,
why not?

8.
Many Americans believe that the official inquiries into the 9/11 event,
especially with respect to the destruction of World Trade Center Building
7, are seriously deficient. As President, would you immediately open
an investigation into this question, inviting full and fair participation
by all interested parties, with timely and complete disclosure of all
relevant information held by every governmental department, bureau,
and other agency, so as to settle the matter once and for all? If not,
why not?

I
must concede that these are questions which the candidates put forward
by the “two” major political parties will never be asked
by any political journalist from the big “mainstream” print
and electronic media. Not, however, because these questions are unimportant,
or because they have no specific answers. Quite the contrary. To demonstrate
that these are not merely theoretical and quixotic inquiries, for purposes
of illustration I shall expand on the practical significance of the
second question: “This country’s monetary and banking systems
have slipped into a state of chronic crisis, which threatens to eventuate
in a nationwide financial collapse. As President, how would you utilize
the authority granted to you under Title 12, United States Code, Section
95(a), to deal with this situation?” In doing so, I shall also
touch on the fourth question: “As President, under Article II,
Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution you would be the “Commander
in Chief * * * of the Militia of the several States, when called into
the actual Service of the United States”. Today, no State fields
a constitutional Militia. Would you therefore demand revitalization
of the Militia in the several States as soon as possible—and how
would you go about it?”

Now,
how should a patriotic President, intent upon restoring an
economically sound, honest, and especially constitutional monetary system
in this country as quickly and effectively as possible, answer these
questions? The proper response is quite straightforward. Section 95(a)
mandates that,

[i]n
order to provide for the safer and more effective operation of the National
Banking System and the Federal Reserve System, to preserve for the people
the full benefits of the currency provided for by the Congress through
the National Banking System and the Federal Reserve System, and to relieve
interstate commerce of the burdens and obstructions resulting from the
receipt on an unsound or unsafe basis of deposits subject to withdrawal
by check, during such emergency period as the President of the United
States by proclamation may prescribe, no member bank of the Federal
Reserve System shall transact any banking business except to such extent
and subject to such regulations, limitations and restrictions as may
be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of
the President. Any individual, partnership, corporation, or association,
or any director, officer or employee thereof, violating any of the provisions
of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction
thereof, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or, if a natural person,
may, in addition to such fine, be imprisoned for a term not exceeding
ten years. Each day that any such violation continues shall be deemed
a separate offense.

Importantly,
this statute imposes no constraints whatsoever on the “regulations,
limitations and restrictions” which the Secretary of the Treasury
may “prescribe * * * with the approval of the President”.
(I do not intend here to enter into an investigation as to whether this
provision is constitutional or not, in whole or in part. Suffice it
to say that it is at least as constitutional as any part of the Federal
Reserve Act, and certainly sufficiently constitutional to be used to
correct the worst deficiencies in that Act “during [the present]
emergency period”. After all, at this perilous stage in the tortuous
course of human events, monetary reformers must act in reliance upon
the old adage that “it takes a crooked stick to beat a mad dog”.
And what sort of stick would be more suitable in this situation than
one which Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal has provided?)

So,
in general, to master the present monetary and banking crisis a patriotic
President could and should “by proclamation” “prescribe”
a suitable “emergency period” during which 12 U.S.C. §
95(a) were to take effect (presumably, until the crisis had abated)—simultaneously
(or, preferably, well beforehand) he should draft the necessary “regulations,
limitations and restrictions”—then he should order that
those “regulations, limitations and restrictions” be “prescribed
by [his hand-picked] Secretary of the Treasury”, precisely as
written so as to obtain the President’s “approval”—and
finally he should enforce those “regulations, limitations and
restrictions” swiftly, surely, and severely, pursuant to his duty
to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” under
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution.

In
particular, the President should so draft and his Secretary of the Treasury
should so “prescribe[ ]” the “regulations, limitations
and restrictions” as to achieve the statute’s two purposes:
namely, (a) “to preserve for the people the full benefits of the
currency provided for by the Congress through the national banking system
and the Federal reserve system”; and (b) “to relieve interstate
commerce of the burdens and obstructions resulting from the receipt
on an unsound or unsafe basis of deposits subject to withdrawal by check”.
Consider each of these in turn—

(a)
Originally, “the full benefits of the currency provided
for by the Congress through the national banking system and the Federal
reserve system” were bipartite.

(i)
On the one hand, those “benefits” included the statutory
right of all Americans to require that Federal Reserve Notes “shall
be redeemed in gold on demand at the Treasury of the United States,
in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, or in gold or lawful
money at any Federal reserve bank”. An Act To provide for the
establishment of Federal reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency,
to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more
effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other
purposes, Act of 23 December 1913, CHAP. 6, § 16, [1], 38 Stat.
251, 265. As this statute made clear, the banks themselves were not
required as a matter of law in the first instance to redeem Federal
Reserve Notes solely in gold (although as a matter of fact they generally
did so prior to 1933 domestically and prior to 1971 internationally);
but they were required to maintain a large reserve of gold in order
to ensure that, at some point, they could be held fully liable for such
redemption:

Every Federal
reserve bank shall maintain * * * reserves in gold of not less than
forty per centum against its Federal reserve notes in actual circulation,
and not offset by gold or lawful money deposited with the Federal
reserve agent. * * * Notes presented for redemption at the Treasury
of the United States shall be paid out of the redemption fund and
returned to the Federal reserve banks through which they were originally
issued, and thereupon such Federal reserve bank shall, upon demand
of the Secretary of the Treasury, reimburse such redemption fund in
lawful money or, if such Federal reserve notes have been redeemed
by the Treasurer in gold or gold certificates, then such funds shall
be reimbursed to the extent deemed necessary by the Secretary of the
Treasury in gold or gold certificates, and such Federal reserve bank
shall, so long as any of its Federal reserve notes remain outstanding,
maintain with the Treasurer in gold an amount sufficient in the judgment
of the Secretary to provide for all redemptions to be made by the
Treasurer.

The Federal Reserve
Board shall require each Federal reserve bank to maintain on deposit
in the Treasury of the United States a sum in gold sufficient in the
judgment of the Secretary of the Treasury for the redemption of the
Federal reserve notes issued to such bank, but in no event less than
five per centum; but such deposit of gold shall be counted and included
as part of the forty per centum reserve hereinbefore required.

Act
of 23 December 1913, § 16, [3] and [4], 38 Stat. at 266. At that
time, the statutorily fixed rate of exchange was 20.67 “dollars”
per ounce of gold, or 23.22 grains of gold per “dollar”.
An Act To define and fix the standard of value, to maintain the parity
of all forms of money issued or coined by the United States, to refund
the public debt, and for other purposes, Act of 14 March 1900, CHAP.
41, § 1, 31 Stat. 45, 45.

Even
with these apparent safeguards in place, however, Congress carefully
provided in the Federal Reserve Act that “[t]he right to amend,
alter, or repeal this Act is hereby expressly reserved”, so that
the lessons later experience taught could easily be applied. Act of
23 December 1914, § 30, 38 Stat. at 275. Unfortunately, in a misguided
response to the banking crisis of the early 1930s, Congress relied on
this reserved right to remove the requirement for redemption of Federal
Reserve Notes in gold. AN ACT To protect the currency system of the
United States, to provide for the better use of the monetary gold stock
of the United States, and for other purposes, Act of 30 January 1934,
CHAPTER 6, § 2(b)(1), 48 Stat. 337, 337, now codified at
12 U.S.C. § 411. Yet, during the same crisis, Congress, in what
ultimately became 12 U.S.C. § 95(a), authorized the President and
the Secretary of the Treasury to prescribe by regulations whatever changes
in the Federal Reserve Act the future might prove to be necessary in
order to deal with such matters. See AN ACT To provide relief
in the existing national emergency in banking, and for other purposes,
Act of 9 March 1933, CHAPTER 1, § 4, 48 Stat. 1, 2.

Subsequent
experience has now taught this country that the only way to obtain “the
full benefits of the currency provided for by the Congress through the
national banking system and the Federal reserve system” with respect
to the original statutory goal of maintaining a permanent relationship
between that “currency” and gold is to impose directly upon
the banks themselves, both in the first place and in the final analysis,
a requirement that they make Federal Reserve Notes freely exchangeable
for gold at all times.

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(ii)
On the other hand, when the Federal Reserve Act was passed, Americans
were already legally entitled to exchange gold coin of the United States
for silver coin of the United States at a statutorily fixed ratio (supposedly
the exchange-rate between the two metals set in the free market). So,
in practice, “the full benefits of the currency provided
for by the Congress through the national banking system and the Federal
reserve system” originally included a paper currency which, in
one way or another, could be exchanged for silver, as well as gold,
coin of the United States. Americans’ ability to require the Treasury
to exchange any forms of United States paper currency for silver ended,
however, in 1968. AN ACT To authorize adjustments in the amount of outstanding
silver certificates, and for other purposes, Act of 24 June 1967, Public
Law 90-29, § 2, 81 Stat. 77, 77. Subsequent experience has taught
this country the serious error of that policy. Therefore, in order to
bring America’s monetary system as quickly as possible into complete
compliance with constitutional principles, as well as sound economics,
a requirement for exchangeability of Federal Reserve Notes for silver
should be included in whatever regulations were to be issued under the
auspices of 12 U.S.C. § 95(a). For part two click below.

Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four
degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).

For more than thirty years he has
practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional issues. In the Supreme
Court of the United States he successfully argued or briefed the cases
leading to the landmark decisions Abood v. Detroit Board of Education,
Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America
v. Beck, which established constitutional and statutory limitations on
the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors,
may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their
employment.

He has written numerous monographs
and articles in scholarly journals, and lectured throughout the county.
His most recent work on money and banking is the two-volume Pieces
of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States
Constitution (2002), the most comprehensive study in existence of American
monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional perspective. www.piecesofeight.us

He is also the co-author (under
a nom de plume) of the political novel CRA$HMAKER:
A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an engineered crash
of the Federal Reserve System, and the political upheaval it causes. www.crashmaker.com

Are
there any principles of government in George Washington’s Farewell
Address which you, as President, would not attempt to put into practice?
If so, what are they; and why and how would you deviate from them?